Ted Kooser: More Than a Local Wonder
by Carla Ketner; illus. by Paula Wallace
Primary, Intermediate    Nebraska    40 pp.
11/23    9781496236777    $17.95

From the collaged endpapers illustrated with watercolor vignettes and short childlike verse to reproductions of several of the poems for which Kooser became well known, this spare, quiet picture-book biography honors the former United States poet laureate. Born in Iowa in 1939, young Ted was a shy, unathletic boy, but he was a sponge when it came to the stories the adults in his small town spun. He devoured books and was particularly inspired by McCloskey’s Lentil, the classic tale of another boy who finds his own way in a small town. He began “fill[ing] the empty spaces in his soul” by writing poetry and spent the rest of his life soaking in the landscape and people surrounding him and sharing it all in his imagery-filled poems. Ketner’s text and Wallace’s paintings mingle effectively to provide the proper mood to share Kooser’s remarkable story. The book closes with an author’s note, a list of Kooser’s books and poems referenced, and three of his poems.

From the January/February 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.